How to let a majority slip away...

...in three easy steps:

• cut arts spending just before the election call, alienating Quebeckers in the province in which your hopes of capturing seats from a faltering BQ are expected to put you over the top
• vow during the campaign to get tough on youth offenders, with punitive prison sentences,further alienating Quebeckers, who prefer rehabilitation to incarceration
• appear sanguine about the retirement savings of Canadians, musing about the bargains now to be found in the cratering stock market, alienating the seniors vote across Canada.

Stephen Harper, all thumbs.